This week on the channel +8.7M views this week

WIRED puts the witch's hat through a historian's fact check

Mikki Brock examines AI-generated witchcraft videos, while anthropologist Tok Thompson takes questions about ghost stories.

Channel:

WIRED Story of October 29, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The channel's weekly summary: what went up this week, what is drawing views now, and where the channel stands among similar channels.

Historian Fact Checks Witchcraft Slop

Things we can learn from the video

Press to jump

0:25Women brewed ale, but Brock says evidence does not support linking their hats to witch iconography.
5:30Ordinary town life continued during trials; accusations involved more than a single suspicious act.
8:33Feared witches were often familiar neighbors and acquaintances, rather than strangers arriving from the woods.
15:51Offering herbal tea was not a straightforward route to accusation; Brock emphasizes underlying social disputes.
20:09Brock argues that popular culture has magnified Salem's prominence within the much broader history of witch hunts.

Brewing ale was women's work in many historical communities. Wearing a particular witch-like hat while doing it? Mikki Brock is not buying that part. In WIRED's "Historian Fact Checks Witchcraft Slop," she separates a real occupation from an appealing origin story that lacks evidence.

The historian of witchcraft and demonology has plenty more to correct in these AI-generated videos, from implausible Puritan court settings to the idea that offering herbal tea could, by itself, trigger a witchcraft accusation. Her larger point is more interesting than a costume error: people feared witches as familiar neighbors and acquaintances, not simply mysterious outsiders wandering in from the woods. Accusations grew out of social relationships and long-running suspicions.

At roughly 400,000 views, Brock's fact check is the most watched of WIRED's six new uploads. Viewers are picking up on the distinction between witch trials in different places and periods, while several have questions about the generated videos' clothing and religious gestures. Others are simply delighted that professor of witchcraft and demonology is a real job description.

"Folklore Expert Answers Ghost Story Questions" supplies the week's other substantial supernatural investigation. Anthropologist Tok Thompson fields questions about the oldest recorded ghost story, poltergeists and ghosts' clothing. It currently draws the most daily views of any WIRED upload, including Brock's.

The schedule also makes room for Ethan Hawke and Betty Gilpin's autocomplete interview and Joe Navarro's body-language myth-busting. Channel-wide daily viewing is above its usual level, though the subscriber count was unchanged over the week. National Geographic is also seeing elevated daily viewing, while BBC Earth's is a little quieter than usual. WIRED's own week belongs largely to experts making familiar stories less simple.

Published on Trari

Where next?

Also in Documentaries and journalismThis week on the channel +156K views this weekRoyalty TV revisits William's rucksack and a royal proposalNick Randall's documentary follows William and Kate from St Andrews friendship to Westminster Abbey and family life.Channel: Royalty TV · Story of November 10, 2026

A different discovery todayVideo taking off 49x its usual first dayWomen in ITV's Power and Silence say David Walliams pursued them as teenagersTwo of the women were 15 when they met him. Walliams denies all wrongdoing, saying in a statement: "I am not a sexual predator".Channel: ITV News · Story of November 11, 2026

What viewers say

Professor on Witchcraft and Demonology, is my new favourite job title I didn’t knew existed
@DomiBorealisSee it on YouTube
2:27 Flying on different objects: my mind going to the scene in Hocus Pocus where they used a vacuum cleaner 😂 😅
@ChandraMiginaSee it on YouTube
Been waiting with bated breath for Prof. Mikki to return since the initial witches (hat) video! Her enthusiasm and command of the subject is *infectious* ..LOVE her!!
@alexporter3499See it on YouTube

2 more comments

It's good to see an academic reference the fact that the "witch trials" as they're known were not just one event, they existed over hundreds of years and we're very different depending on the country and the location. The English Witch Trials were entirely different in scope, character and cause then the German ones which were both nothing like the hysteria in Salem and so on.
@spooksmalloySee it on YouTube
"Professor and historian of witchcraft and demonology", that is a cool title 😈🤓.
@rhysioeren3203See it on YouTube

Public comments from the video's page on YouTube